The PAST Building: Storming the Telephone Tower
Why is it significant?
At the corner of Zielna, look up at the dark, heavy building with the tall tower and the steep pointed roof.
Key Facts
| Place | The PAST Building: Storming the Telephone Tower |
|---|---|
| Address | ul. Zielna 37, 00-108 Warszawa, Poland |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.23630, 21.00650 |
| Part of Walk | Sixty-Three Days: The Warsaw Uprising of 1944, from Krasiński Square to Złota Street |
| Generated | Generated |
At the corner of Zielna, look up at the dark, heavy building with the tall tower and the steep pointed roof. It was built at the start of the twentieth century as the telephone exchange of the Swedish Cedergren company, which ran Warsaw's telephones, and when it was finished it was the tallest building in the city. Warsaw knows it by the initials of a later owner, the Polish Telephone Company, PAST, which in local speech turned into Pasta.
Under occupation it was the heart of German telephone communications in the city, and the Germans fortified it. When the Uprising broke out, its garrison held on, and from the upper floors machine guns swept the surrounding streets. For almost three weeks the insurgents attacked again and again, and failed.
On 20 August 1944 they finally broke in. Soldiers of the Kiliński Battalion and other units pumped fuel into the building with a fire pump, set it ablaze, and then fought their way up floor by floor. More than a hundred Germans were taken prisoner, and the white-and-red flag went up on the tower. After three weeks of terrible news from Wola and the Old Town, the city had a day of pure joy, and people came out of the cellars to cheer.
Notice the battalion's name. Kiliński again, the shoemaker of 1794 you met on Podwale, lending his name to the young men and women of 1944. Warsaw has always fought with its own history in its pocket. And there is a quieter detail: many of the insurgents who stormed this building were office clerks, students and tram drivers a few weeks before, with only basic training snatched in secret.
The building was badly damaged and rebuilt after the war, and a plaque on its wall records the battle. Its tower is still a landmark of this part of the centre. Now walk south down Zielna to Złota street and turn left, heading towards Marszałkowska and an old cinema facade.